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Friday, September 26, 2008

Holy limp noodle, I am not a humidity person. Humidity brings the similarities between my hair and over-cooked spaghetti all too close. Plus I am not a delicate perspirer in humid conditions. It surprises me how much sweat my body can produce. The volume of perspiration is not at all consistent with my actual body size. I hate it. North Carolina, occasionally, is muggy, muggy, muggy. It almost feels as if you could grab hold of the air and wring it out like a wet rag.

This morning when I woke up it was actually so humid that water was condensing on the tiles of our screened porch. I left footprints as I walked out to check the rabbit all the while breathing air that was as thick as syrup. Yuck. It was only 65 degrees out there but it felt oppressive.

99% of the time I am happy. Rarely do I find myself in a foul mood without a really good reason. I consider this to be one of my better personality traits. But this humidity was turning me into a major grouch, and as I progressed through the day I began to feel about as good-natured as Lizzie Borden with PMS. Factor in the brouhaha with the economic turmoil and corresponding nationalization of our financial sector and I could hardly stand myself by the time I got to Costco.

I do love Costco. Usually a trip to Costco makes me at least a little bit happy. It's sort of like a treasure hunt. But today I walked through the hallowed doors of cheap prices and found no reprieve.

I plowed through my shopping, paid for my purchases and departed with a cart quite literally overflowing. As I left the building it felt as though a cloak had been settled on my shoulders. Humidity. It had just rained and the pavement was steaming. Double yuck.

By now my mood had bypassed grumpy and taken the express route to ferocious. I approached my car and briefly pondered my strategy for loading the trunk. Imagine my surprise when a complete stranger approached me. At first I was cautious. The stranger, a 30-something male, said, "Excuse me ma'am. You look like you're having a rough day. Would you like me to help you with that?" Seriously. I was so taken aback that I just stood there and stared at him. I guess I stared longer than I thought because he started unloading my cart! This is completely out of my comfort zone and initially made me nervous, but he had me when he set my bag of spinach aside so that it wouldn't get bruised. We made quick work of the groceries together, and then he simply said, "Have a good one" and was off. I called out a sincere thank you as he walked away with my cart, and he smiled and waved, and was gone.

I still had a bazillion things to get done, and the humidity had certainly not improved. But just like that, Lizzie Borden left the house and Kathy Belinski returned.